GREECE’S IDENTITY CRISIS

By KOSTAS TSAPOGAS
ATHENS — Most of the outside world views the current Greek drama — played out on the streets of Athens, the boardrooms of the European banking elite and the halls of the Greek Parliament — as the bursting of one of the global economy’s weakest links. A closer inspection, from inside the calamity, reveals a crisis that reaches to the core of Greek identity, which was gradually distorted by its continuous disconnect from reality dating back to the second half of the 20th century.

The international financial crisis was indeed the detonator that punctured the Greek bubble. But the foundation of the meltdown lay partly in the unlimited sense of entitlement felt by many Greeks, partly based on the country’s role as the cradle of Western civilization, which led to a denial of reality. Though its culture is ancient, Greece is actually one of the younger nation-states in Europe, established in 1830. Its early tumultuous years were fraught with heavy-handed meddling by foreign powers. This interference culminated in the American-supported military dictatorship from 1967-74, and this history has fed the Greek people’s bitterness and their propensity for righteous indignation. Decades of rampant populism greatly inflated its citizenry’s Mediterranean cavalier attitude toward civic responsibility.

Back in 1981, a few hours after the first general election won by the Socialist party of Andreas Papandreou, I was traveling down a one-way street when a young bearded man on a moped drove aggressively toward me. After my disapproving look, he unleashed a tirade: “Forget what you knew up to now. Now the people have come to power.” As part of “the people,” he considered himself entitled to ignore the rules of the road. It could be laughed off as naïve juvenile behavior, but this mindset permeates Greek society.

Public employees are also prone to flout laws they disagree with. Last month, an official at the University of Thessaly refused to send eight computers to two campuses to be used in voting for governing councils, as stipulated by the new law governing Greek higher education. In a letter to his superiors, he said he based his “resistance” on personal moral grounds and on his conscience “as an active citizen,” and refused to cooperate with the implementation of what he called “this despicable law.”

Acts of civil disobedience like these are an everyday occurrence. In this case, the university official had the support of the University Employee Union, which said that it is the right and obligation of every Greek citizen to resist “by any means against anyone trying to forcefully overthrow the constitution,” though this law that tries to reform Greece’s outmoded university system was passed by a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
The institutionalized propensity for defiance illustrates why change is difficult to implement in Greece.

The Greek economy’s crash radicalized those devoted to the notion of “resistance.” But there is another group, mostly silent throughout this catastrophic period, that now dares utter the word “reality.” With the increasingly frequent mention of this word, the possibility for change is finally in the air in Greece.

Unfortunately the “bailout” program imposed by the so-called “troika” of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank insists on an approach that almost guarantees a recession. The deal’s punitive terms are sabotaging the fledgling transformation of Greece’s collective identity. It allows those who continue to resist reality to create confusion by joining up with those who, though they know something needs to be done, resist the recipe for economic disaster.

On February 12, the world watched flames and smoke rising from buildings set ablaze in the center of Athens during protests against the austerity measures that were approved by Parliament in exchange for more rescue financing. The spectacular acts of a few hundred violent demonstrators eclipsed the actions of the up to 200,000 on the streets who peacefully rejected, not the need for change, but the disastrous policies imposed from abroad. Some Greeks are ready to accept hardship and a steep decline in living standards. What many reject is the hopelessness for a better day forced by the troika’s demands.

These responsible Greeks are caught between the radicals who call for “resistance” to any change and the troika’s suffocating prescription. Given some space to operate, these reasonable factions in Greek society might be able to alter the paradigm and implement the reforms the nation needs to move forward. But it is a painstaking process that needs breathing room to develop.

(Kostas Tsapogas is the former foreign editor of Eleftherotypia, an Athens daily that is currently seeking bankruptcy protection.)

Τhis article was written for the New York Times International Weekly and published in 30 countries